Stax And The Soul Of Hip-Hop

Hip-hop is clearly the most impactful and important musical genre that has emerged in the past thirty years. And much of it has been built on the rhythmic foundations of soul. Stax has just released The Soul Of Hip Hop, a compilation of Stax songs that were used for tracks and beats in famous hip hop songs, including De La Soul, Rakim, DJ HiTek, Cypress Hill, DJ Muggs, LL Cool J, Public Enemy, DJ Quik, Ice Cube, Notorious B.I.G., Wu-Tang Clan, RZA and more. Featuring songs by Isaac Hayes, The Emotions, Booker T. and the MG's, William Bell and others, it's a great and funky look at the impact that Stax has had on hip-hop.

I spoke with the compilation's producer, Jonathan Kaslow, a former co-worker of mine at Island Def Jam. Jonathan is one of the most knowledgeable and passionate hip-hop and music fans I've ever known, so doing this interview was a true pleasure.

Q: What was the genesis of The Soul Of Hip Hop?

I'm a consultant for Stax, and I've been going back into the vault and taking multitrack masters from the Stax catalog (including the above title) and converting them to Pro Tools sessions. I then take sessions that I feel producers will be interested in and give them to use for sampling. An example of this would be producer Jake One who took the multitrack from "Masquerade" and created a beat that ended up as the music for the Freeway song, "It's Over" on his Def Jam album Free At Last. Some of the producers and artists working with the material are Dr. Dre, Kanye West and Ghostface Killah.

From that, we sort of came up with the “soul of hip-hop” idea – we wanted to educate people how influential Stax has been in the sound of hip-hop. We were in talks with Def Jam to try to make an album of new material using all the Stax multitrack masters. I had arranged something with Rondor Publishing to do a blanket license – but for various reasons, it got shelved.

Q: I know you as a enormous hip-hop fan – what’s your relationship to soul music?

I’ve always had personal relationship to soul music. My mom, Alison Miner, was one of the managers of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and she managed Professor Longhair for a while. So growing up, I was more exposed to the r&b and blues side of things. I wasn’t as educated about the Memphis sound. I discovered it through my love of hip-hop – going back to find where my favorite rap tracks came from.

There are some Stax artists that my mom booked for Jazzfest – she had booked the Staple Singers and Margie Joseph. So the circle of life – it’s incredible. My mom passed a few years ago, I’m working with the masters of the artists she booked, and I’m thinking “Who was my mom talking to to make this happen…was she talking to (Stax head) Al Bell?”

But my education came through hip-hop. I felt like I had to find my own sound. And hip-hop was that. Hip hop is the music of my generaton. But you have a moment when you’re a kid if you’re into hip-hop and if your parents have a big record collection. You have curiosity about how these sounds came. I'd listen to these old albums, and then I'd discover a track that one of my favorite rap songs was from and I'd be like, “Oh shit…that’s from that?” All these of these great rap songs are based on this old music. And when I’d try to find the hip hop sample, it all led back to Stax. I had no idea all this stuff happened in Memphis.

Q: One thing I noticed is that all of these songs come from the post-1969 catalog. The Stax catalog that is venerated is usually from the Atlantic era (up until 1968). But everything you have here is from the era after Stax left Atlantic.

Yeah – that’s a great point. Until I worked at Stax I didn’t have expertise in the catalog. It took me the last few years to learn it. And amongst the old-timers at Stax today, artists like Sam & Dave are the absolute pinnacle of the catalog. Absolutely – for them, it’s the pre-1968 stuff. But everything that moves me is from the post-1969 piece of the catalog when Stax got a lot funkier. For me, after 1969, things got much more interesting rhythmically. The BPM’s got to around 88 or 90…just the kind of tempos that would become perfect to rap to. And a lot of the beats that are sampled from Stax are just so perfect that they just loop it and do nothing else. They don’t have to layer it or anything. They’re perfect.

A lot of the artists in the catalog – Johnnie Taylor, Rufus Thomas, the Mad Lads – they went from that 50’s bluesy, doo-wop influenced sound to pure funk. Stax’s music from 1969-1974 brought us an era of music that for some reason, became the dominant sound in hip-hop from the late 80’s to the mid-90’s. For a guy like me from the hip hop generation, the later era of Stax speaks volumes more.

Q: Why would you recommend this to a hip-hop fan unfamiliar with Stax or old school soul?

For someone who grew up with hip-hop, but didn’t go beyond being a listener–if they never got into production, they can listen to this CD and really get the origins of hip-hop. We approached the project from the context of, “What are the most famous hip-hop songs that used Stax beats, and then what Stax songs comprised those.” A lot of soul fans are unfamiliar with the Mad-Lads, but for me, they’re more important than Sam & Dave. And the people that listen to the older part of the Stax catalog – they can get into it because it’s funky.

This whole project has been an education for the people on the Stax side. They’ve made money off of sampling – but they didn’t know what it was or how to make it interesting for them in a social context. A lot of people of the Stax generation – both artists and executives – would give sample clearances very grudgingly. But thanks to this project, I think the folks at Stax have an ever broader sense of the impact their music has had, and it's actually made them fans of sampling! Because if it wasn’t for the hip-hop generation, someone like me, I wouldn’t even have even 10% of the interest I do in this music. It’s been good for everyone involved.

Q: Do you have future plans with this project?

We have plans to do multiple volumes of this particular set. I want to create “the soul of hip hop” as a brand in that we can create an idea and a theme that is universal to this. It’s a bridge between generations between soul and hip-hop. What I’ve been doing with these is using the multi-track masters, which gives producers so many more options. When I opened the multi-track of David Porter’s “I'm Afraid The Masquerade Is Over,” I almost cried – for me, even though he's a legendary producer and songwriter, what he’s known for is that song, which has been sampled by Wu Tang Clan, LL Cool J, and Biggie. When I could hear the strings separate from the piano – if you mute out things, there’s an almost infinite amount of possibilities you can create. I’d love to give background on how these tracks led to hip-hop. Maybe even do a TV program and show how a hip-hop artist would approach these vaults.

It’s interesting how history is approached differently with rock and rap. In rock, artists will often be obvious and forthcoming about their historical influences - which can reach back decades. In hip-hop, so many of the artists, especially with their braggadocio, will try to portray themselves as a whole new thing – nothing came before, and nothing comes after. Yet the foundation of all their music is older.

It's true - it's a different relationship to history and the past. When I was 11 years old, I was way into the Geto Boys Can’t Be Stopped album, the one with “Mind Playing Tricks On Me.” The first song on side two of the cassette was “You Gotta Let Your Nuts Hang,” which Scarface is all over. I was at my mom’s in New Orleans – and I was going through my her record collection. She had managed the Wild Magnolias, who were this incredible band of Mardi Gras Indians. Their first album is seminal. I heard the loop from “Gotta Let Your Nuts Hang,” knew it was from the Wild Magnolias, and then when I checked the credits of the Geto Boys album, I was like, “I don’t see the song credited.”

So I told my mom, who then called band pianist Willie T, and she had me go to Willie T’s place and play him the Geto Boys. He listened and then said, “I’ve never heard of the Geto Boys, I’ve never heard this song, and no one ever contacted me about using it.” He ended up taking Geto Boys to court and won - I was a hip hop snitch (laughter) – and that money really helped him. Being around the New Orleans musicians growing up, I was taught that they’re the most important thing - and that you have to protect them. My mom taught me that history is a hugely important thing, and it can’t be let to fade in the background. Growing up in hip-hop I had a weird identity – I knew that it was built on the past, but it wasn't something you ever talked about. I think why there’s a lack of history sometimes is because of the socio-economic history of African-Americans in this country. It’s a very painful past sometimes, and I think denying the history can sometimes be a way to get past the pain.

You have tons of examples of that in black music history – middle class blacks in the 50’s and 60’s who hated the blues, and felt that that was old plantation shit to be left behind.

Yeah. I remember working at Def Jam when "Standing In The Shadows Of Motown" came out. The movie came up in a staff meeting, and a very high up black executive said to all of us, “You best keep me as far away from that shit as possible.” And I was like, “You don’t like Motown?” But for that person, their relationship to that music was very different from mine, and it was not to be discussed.

Download: David Porter - "I'm Afraid The Masqurade Is Over"

Buy The Soul Of Hip Hop at eMusic

Buy The Soul Of Hip Hop at Amazon MP3 store

Buy The Soul Of Hip Hop at iTunes

Bootleg Friday: Sam & Dave, 1967

There are two kinds of improvisation in music. One kind is self-conscious. It is improvisation for improvisations sake (countless jam bands). Then there is the kind of improvisation that exists because the performers can't be contained within the known limits of a song. The songs from this Sam & Dave show in Stockholm, 1967, are examples of the latter. The greatest of all soul duos take some of their best known songs and recreate them - slow them down, expand them, inject subtle changes in tempo and feeling and make them overwhelming.

Stax's Spring 1967 tour of Europe was one of their greatest triumphs. Greeted with a love and an un-ambivalent respect that they could not receive in America, they responded by delivering shows that forty years after the fact, remain legend. The four songs contained here are a small example of the fire they brought to the stage every night. Both Michael Jackson, who used to watch them in the wings at the Apollo, when the young Jackson 5 was playing the chitlin circuit, and Bruce Springsteen, who went to see them in the 70's, both said they stole liberally from Sam & Dave's show. Mediocre artists borrow, great artists...

Download: "You Got Me Hummin'" - 5/2/67, Stockholm, Sweden
Download: "Soothe Me" - 5/2/67, Stockholm, Sweden
Download: "When Something Is Wrong With My Baby" - 5/2/67, Stockholm, Sweden
Download: "Hold On, I'm Coming!" - 5/2/67, Stockholm, Sweden

Ruminations On Jerry Wexler

Jerry Wexler was one of my heroes. As I got into soul music in my late teens, it seemed as though the credit "Produced by Jerry Wexler" was on every album I bought. Aretha Franklin. Ray Charles. Sam & Dave. Wilson Pickett. The Drifters. And on and on. In possession of an obsessive mind, I soon began reading pretty much everything I could about him, and as I made the decision to be in the record business, he quickly became someone I aspired to be.

I admired and identified with him tremendously. He was an intellectual misfit, voraciously reading and loving the work of American writers like Faulkner, Hemingway and Fitzgerald - yet he was an underachieving student. His identified completely as a Jew, yet he was a vociferous atheist. He distrusted authority, but he spoke with certitude of taste. His opinion was not just another opinion. He did not suffer fools at all. And, of course, he had amazing taste – able to see greatness in artists no matter what the style, no matter what the genre, no matter what the era. It’s a long and varied road from Joe Turner to Ray Charles, from the Drifters to Wilson Pickett, from Clapton to Led Zeppelin, from Dr. John to the B-52’s and from Willie Nelson to the Gang of Four, but Wexler was able to discern what was special about all of them as musicians and as people, not always in that order, and then he guided, prodded, cajoled, begged and inspired them to create their best work.

Of course, it the triumph he shared with Aretha Franklin that Wexler will be most remembered, and lionized for. He took a supremely talented woman who was hyped as the greatest jazz voice since Billie Holiday - then completely miscast as a singer of pop and lite jazz, and under his watchful eye, had her recreate herself as the most important female vocalist – musically, culturally, spiritually – of the second half of the twentieth century. How did he do it? He created the space for her be herself. “I just sat her down at the piano and let her be herself,” he later said. What an marvelous thing – letting someone be themselves. (And believe me, I’ve worked in the record business long enough to know that letting someone be themselves is the unfortunately, the exception rather than the rule.) If soul was the musical expression of a race of people ready to affirm who and what they were and demand what they wanted (which resonated universally), than Aretha was the epitome of that expression. The miracle of soul music (and Wexler’s legacy) is that it is an affirmation valuing personal authenticity that will resonate as long as people listen to music.

When I had my first interview to be an intern at Atlantic Records in the early 90’s, my vision of Atlantic was what it had been in the mid-60’s. I was bursting at the seams with excitement and tremendously naive. I remember excitedly asking the H.R. person I was talking to, “Does Jerry Wexler still work here?” She smiled, a look of, “I don’t believe this kid,” and told me that he had left the company over 15 years previously. I loved interning at Atlantic – but I was working on Winger, Skid Row and INXS - not the Drifters, Sam & Dave and Donnie Hathaway.

My second summer at Atlantic, I interned for Jerry’s son, Paul Wexler, a wonderful guy, and we became friends. (Paul – if you’re reading this, email me – I’d love to reconnect.) By my second summer in the record biz, I knew enough that I had to play things cooler. When I found out whose son Paul was, I didn’t approach him and go, “Wow! You’re Jerry Wexler’s son! Tell me everything!” I just did my job for him and we began to talk about our mutual love of the Grateful Dead (Paul turned me on to the great Binghamton, 5/2/70 show, a legendary one in Dead-lore) and other artists. The best compliment Paul gave me was one day a couple of weeks into my internship, when he said, “You know your stuff.”

Eventually, Paul talked to me a bit of what it was like to be Jerry Wexler’s son. It wasn’t easy. Jerry was on the road for most of Paul’s childhood, and when he was home, it was all about him and the business. Jerry was opinionated to the point of arrogance, even with his kids, so when Paul would play some early Rolling Stones (consisting of covers of many songs that Jerry had produced in their original versions) or the Grateful Dead, Jerry often would irritably inquire, “What are you playing this shit for?” And being the son of a famous/legendary father is never uncomplicated. Paul told me a story that when he met Eric Clapton, Clapton shook his hand and said, “tough act to follow.” I learned that there was a great price paid for all of that success. And I knew it left its mark because Paul never referred to his father as “Dad.” It was always “Jerry.”

(This was in the early 90’s – judging from the tone in which Paul spoke of his father in the obituaries today, I am guessing that they got closer in the past 15 years before Jerry’s death. I certainly hope that was the case.)

Jerry Wexler was a giant of American music. It's almost impossible to gauge the impact he had. But whether it's the legacy of Aretha in singers like Mariah & Christina (Jerry hated Mariah - thought she oversang), the term R&B itself (Jerry invented it), the legacy of Stax, the rise of Southern Rock and so much more, Jerry Wexler was a contribution to it all.

What a thing to be.

Issac Hayes: The Coolest

Isaac Hayes had the coolest voice I’ve ever heard - deep, sexy, velvety, totally commanding and thoroughly vulnerable. It was imposing as well; he may have sung about the bad motherfucker that was John Shaft, but I always thought of him as the truly bad mofo. After all, he was real and Shaft was fiction.

But beyond the wonder of his voice (and his sublime 1969 album Hot Buttered Soul), I’m most grateful to Isaac Hayes for the incredible soul classics he wrote with his songwriting partner, David Porter. “Hold On, I’m Coming,” “Soul Man,” “I Thank You,” “When Something Is Wrong With My Baby,” (one of the most beautiful love songs ever), “B-A-B-Y” and more. These weren’t simply great soul songs – they were incredible songs, period, worthy of the songwriting teams that Hayes lionized, like Holland-Dozier-Holland and Bacharach-David.

Isaac was obviously a key figure in the history of soul. After Otis Redding’s death in late 1967, he took the Stax sound into a lusher, more orchestral direction, adding hints of jazz and a new sophistication. But it was still soul – just put on “Walk On By” (from Hot Buttered Soul) and you can hear his brilliance as a producer and arranger, taking the Dionne Warwick hit (written by Bacharach/David) and turning it into something darker and richer.

I only saw him once, this past June in Prospect Park. He was obviously tired, having been slowed down by a recent stroke. But the voice was still there, in command, reminding me of a white haired prophet from the Old Testament. The world seems a little less cool without him. Farewell Isaac – you’ve earned your rest.

Buy Isaac Hayes at the Amazon MP3 Store

Bootleg Friday: Southside Johnny & Little Steven, 1993

I’ve been a Southside Johnny fan for a long time. He’s a true believer in the power of soul music and despite his never “making it” to even close to the degree of a certain friend of his named Bruce has, he’s persevered, continuing to release albums and putting himself on the line with every performance. His first three albums are all excellent, and Hearts of Stone, his 1978 album produced by Little Steven when he was still known as Miami Steve Van Zandt, is a masterpiece, fusing the hard rock of the Rolling Stones with the soul of Stax.

One of my favorite live music moments was at a Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes show in 1995 at the Stone Pony. It was a Saturday night show and the Pony was packed – a homecoming show for a band that, by that point in time, knew that it would never achieve it’s original dream, but played as though none of that mattered. All there was was a Saturday night and an audience to slay. The band and Southside kicked ass, and during “The Fever,” I was next to the stage singing along (with the exact phrasing that Southside was doing, cause I’m a dork), and Southside saw me, locked eyes with me and then he stuck his microphone in my face and demanded, “Sing it to me my brother!” I did as told. My friend Michael looked at me in astonishment and then almost died laughing.

Today’s edition of Bootleg Friday features a few songs from a Southside Johnny radio performance that he did with Little Steven in 1993. It was a benefit performance for Hungerthon, and to raise money, the band (Southside, Little Steven, Bobby Bandiera, David Haynes and violinist Soozie Tyrell) took requests over the phone, which resulted in a great set of covers, from artists like Neil Young, Van Morrison, Springsteen, Chuck Berry and more. But the most hilarious and unlikely song here is, Madonna’s “Like A Virgin,” which somehow works. Listening to the show you can hear the commitment of a singer who’s always been in the moment, even if big success ultimately eluded him.

Download: "Broke Down Piece Of Man" (Sam & Dave) 11/21/93
Download: "Little Queenie" (Chuck Berry) 11/21/93
Download: "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" (Hank Williams) 11/21/93
Download: "Like A Virgin" (Madonna) 11/21/93
Download: "I Don't Want To Go Home" 11/21/93

Download Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes at Amazon

Stax Hearts The Beatles

The Beatles were my first musical love. After John Lennon was killed in December of 1980, I dug up my older brother and sister’s copies of Revolver, the White Album, Let It Be, Sergeant Pepper and Rubber Soul and I was immediately hooked. They became an obsession, and I was soon reading everything I possibly could about them (my favorite Beatles book remains Philip Norman’s Shout) and rock in general, so my love of the Beatles soon took me to the music that influenced them, mainly 50’s and early 60’s rock, r&b and soul. The first time I ever heard the word Stax was from reading a John Lennon quote about his favorite music.

The Beatles exposed millions of people (like me) to American r&b and soul, and the artists at Stax were grateful for the exposure and enthralled with the Beatles music. And you can hear the Stax artists version of some Beatles classics on the new compilation, Stax Does The Beatles, due out on February 26. Featuring the likes of Booker T. and the MG’s, Isaac Hayes and Carla Thomas, it’s a collection I’m looking forward to getting.

But my favorite r&b cover of a Beatles song is not by a Stax artist, but by Al Green. His version of “I Want To Hold Your Hand” exploded the Beatles version, taking the innocence out of it and making it ridiculously sexy and funky. The horn lines, swelling in the bridge, add something that the Beatles, for all the infectious greatness of their original version, didn’t have.

Download: Al Green "I Want To Hold Your Hand"